The Trials and Tribulations of a Backpacker

Following the heels of my 75K AA post, I booked a ticket to Guatemala City. Told you it was legit! What otherwise would have cost me $1,300-1,400 on Kayak came out to be $105 with 70K points.

I’ll be leaving December 18th and coming back January 2nd. It’ll be another solo trip and a bit different from Honduras as I don’t plan on heading to the ocean. I’m not quite sure what route I’ll take but I have some time to figure out a rough idea.

Unfortunately, there are downsides of rewards travel. Mainly, I have a freaking NINETEEN hour layover in Dallas. I land in Dallas Fort Worth at 9:55pm Dec 18th and don’t fly out until 5pm Dec 19th.

Basically a whole night and half a day.

I’m thinking I might check into a hostel, grab a steak, go out at night, see a couple things in the morning and book it back to the airport.

One of the more interesting debates I’ve heard on the backpacking trail is over the use of guidebooks. I’m talking about the Rough Guides, the Frommer’s, the Moons, Rick Steve’s and, of course, the ubiquitous Lonely Planet. They are everywhere these days it’s rare to go into a hostel without seeing one.

Like the previous two days, we woke up at the crack of dawn. The last leg before reaching Aguas Calientes, the majority of day three was spent walking along railroad tracks. Trains going to Machu Picchu (for those less inclined to hiking) traveled along the tracks and we saw them pass by once or twice. These tracks also happened to be the very same ones that were washed out in the March 2010 floods, about a year after I passed through.

There’s currently a very hot deal going on where you can get 75K miles for signing up for an American Airlines credit card. There are three versions of the card floating around (Visa, Visa Business, Amex) so it’s possible to rack up 225K miles if you are approved for all three.

Only condition is you have to spend $1,500 within the first 6 months, which should be pretty easy to do. The first year fee is waived and you can always cancel after you receive the miles if you don’t want to keep the card.

I met Angie, Anna and Michael a few days prior and we decided to go as a group. We woke up early as a long day of travel awaited us: several hours of driving through the Sacred Valley followed by downhill mountain biking down into the town of Santa Maria.

Look at that picture. It’s awesome. It’s me, getting my llama lean on at Machu Picchu. Wayna Picchu is in perfect view in the background, the clouds had just parted, the weather was warm, and at that moment, everything was right in the world. It’s one of my all-time favorite self-pictures.